Perhaps best known for the observation "Je pense, donc je suis" ("I am thinking; therefore, I exist"), Descartes's Discourse on Method lays the foundation for his later writings.
René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry.
